The Road Warrior comes to Emerald Valley Comic Fest

In a candid presentation, actor Vernon G. Wells talked about his career as a bad guy at Emerald Valley Comic Fest on Oct. 3, 2015. Wells is best known for his villain roles in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and Commando.

“The bad guy’s the best thing in any movie,” says Wells. Acting wasn’t Wells’ first career choice.

While Wells didn’t agree with any of Miller’s reasons for casting him as the Road Warrior (see video), it worked. Wells says that the Road Warrior just came together as an amazing film.

“If I had any choices, I wouldn’t be here,” says Wells. “I wanted to be a director.” However, he “did a stage play, which changed my life.”

He was asked to do the play, which was about two gay guys, but he didn’t want to “play anything that was that way.” On stage, the play required that he be naked and masturbate in front of the audience. The fact that he had no fear impressed George Miller’s girlfriend, who recommended him for the Road Warrior. That launched a career of 179 movies with two more on the slate for the coming year.

“If people are silly enough to hire me, I will work for them,” says Wells, who is happy with acting and has no regrets. Being a villain is easy for Wells because he is pretending. The role of a good guy is more difficult because it is closer to who he actually is.

Wells thinks the new Mad Max film Fury Road is amazing, but it has one flaw – Charlize Theron became more Mad Max than Thomas Hardy was.

“Visually, it is probably one of the most amazing films I’ve seen in my life,” says Wells.

Wells hasn’t given up on directing. His current projects include a vampire film called the Promise and Dogfighter where he also has a writing credit.